Forrester On Brands Sharing Data; Outbrain's API

A Forrester report released Monday examines how brands share data with each other, and what benefits they derive from doing so. The key advantage of so-called “second-party data,” in brief, is that it’s not as scarce as first-party data but it provides unique insights not always available in third-party data sets. “Dell and Intel ... share data so Dell can benefit from Intel’s demand generation marketing activities and close the sales loop.” As always, there are issues with sharing, including finding compatible partners and the fact that the practice might freak out consumers and regulators. Get it. [Paid download]

Outbrain APIs

Outbrain released APIs that let partners and clients manage, measure and execute bids on content campaigns. “Now that programmatic has entered the content marketer’s world, I believe that it will drive adoption by a new wave of digital marketers who are primed to take advantage of it,” said Shafqat Islam, CEO of Newscred, an Outbrain partner since July. Press release. The API release comes on the heels of Outbrain’s $100 million, multiyear deal to provide content ads on Time Inc. properties. Another day, another ecosystem.

More Installs

App downloads hit an all-time high in October, growing 42% sequentially and 39% year over year, according to Fiksu’s index. The cost to acquire a loyal user fell slightly last month, as Apple fans reinstalled all their favorite apps after upgrading. But the long-term trend is toward higher prices to acquire mobile users, and that’s likely to continue. That may be OK as long as apps remain in hot demand. “While recent indexes have shown a steady stream of escalating costs, the October index numbers validate another important trend: the increasing importance of apps to consumers," explained Fiksu CEO Micah Adler. Read the press release.

Snapchat Deal Codes

Amazon (the commerce giant, not the ad platform) is doing more on Snapchat and Instagram in time for the holidays. Last week, the company unveiled plans to embed deal codes in its branded Snapchats, and has already turned on shopping in its Instagram feed. “Snapchat is slowly understanding how they’d like to monetize their app but it also seems like they want to introduce ads in a nonintrusive way,” said Esha Shah, manager of mobile strategy and innovation at Fetch. Mobile Commerce Daily has more.

Shopping For Data

After being acquired by Japan-based Rakuten in August, shopping and package tracking app Slice has made its own purchase. On Monday, the company bought Unroll.Me, an email organization app that helps users manage online subscriptions. Rakuten also snapped up Ebates this year for a cool $1 billion. Rakuten is on an ecommerce acquisition roll, and the customer insights are piling up. Read on via TechCrunch.